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UC lawsuit leads to thousands of DACA grant renewals

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So far this year, more than 117,000 young immigrants have extended their authorization to legally live and work in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the direct result of a federal injunction issued in response to a lawsuit brought by the University of California and other plaintiffs.

A review of the latest data issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services shows that since the time the injunction took effect until the end of June, 117,446 DACA recipients received a two-year renewal of their grants.

“Our efforts on behalf of our DACA students and the hundreds of thousands of other DACA recipients throughout the country are far from over,” said UC President Janet Napolitano. “But these numbers provide some good news. For the next two years, these immigrants brought to the country as children, who have done all that has been asked of them to authorize their U.S. residency, can continue to work, pursue their educations, help support their families, and live without fear of deportation.”

In September of last year, the University of California sued the Department of Homeland Security to halt the rescission of DACA, and on January 9, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup issued a preliminary injunction that forced DHS to continue to process DACA renewal applications. The case is now under review by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Since the January injunction was issued in San Francisco, two additional federal judges, one in Washington, D.C., and the other in New York, have issued similar orders based on arguments that the Trump administration broke the law when it tried to end the DACA program. All three rulings found the rescission of DACA was “arbitrary and capricious.”

In addition to pursuing its legal challenges to the rescission, the University of California continues to advocate for Congress to pass legislation that will give permanent statutory protection for DACA recipients.